Howdy, Some people run Linux on Macs because they appreciate some advantage of Linux as an OS and like some physical characteristic of the Apple hardware. It may be styling. The B&W G3 case is the best looking consumer tower PC ever made, as far as I am concerned. At one time, Apple hardware was made better than most other PCs. I am not saying it is bad now, just that I don't see any quality advantages. I like Mac laptops, but they have one of the highest failure rates in the business. I know people who run Linux on PPC Apples for security reasons. If you run into malicious web sites, you are really unlikely to find someone who coded it to handle a PPC Linux machine. You can't depend on that alone, but it is another layer of security. Some people do it to be different. Sometimes, there is a practical reason. I setup Linux on an old G3 iMac for a client once to act as a backup appleshare server. The software we needed was not in OSX, but was in OSX server. It was a temporary need, while a big server was down. So, I just used Linux and it solved our need. You are right that an interesting thing these days is that we can bring other operating systems to Mac hardware and unofficially, it is possible to bring the Apple OS to other hardware. There is some nice symmetry there. That's nice for me in the long run, because I don't ever see myself buying an Apple x86 machine. Above OS choice, I am adamant about freedom and the treacherous firmware in the Apple x86 machines is not something I would accept. Not even if you gave me the machine would I accept it. Good luck and have some fun, Ralph
On Tue, 2009-09-01 at 10:59 -0700, John Niven wrote: > Every time I approached loading Linux on a Mac I'd always ask myself why? It > used to be that the unique thing about Macs was that they ran Mac OS! --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
